Aleksandr Onufriyevich Kovalevsky

Aleksandr Onufriyevich Kovalevsky, (born Nov. 7 [Nov. 19, New Style], 1840, Shustyanka, near Dvinsk, Russia—died Nov. 9 [Nov. 22], 1901, St. Petersburg) Russian founder of comparative embryology and experimental histology, who established for the first time the existence of a common pattern in the embryological development of all multicellular animals.

Kovalevsky received a doctor of science degree from the University of St. Petersburg (1867) and taught there (1867, 1891–93) and at the universities of Kazan (1868–69), Kiev (1869–74), and Odessa (1874–90). He also went on lengthy expeditions to the Red Sea and to the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea.